


The Next Summer - Return to Gravity Falls

by livin_in_my_head_2



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: A Better World (Gravity Falls), F/M, Gravity Falls Oregon, Gravity Falls Spoilers, Older Dipper Pines, Older Mabel Pines, Post-Gravity Falls, Returning to Gravity Falls, Teenage Dipper Pines, Teenage Mabel Pines
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23921533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livin_in_my_head_2/pseuds/livin_in_my_head_2
Summary: Dipper and Mabel Pines struggled in California, so the summer after their freshman year of high school, their parents shipped them off yet again to Gravity Falls. And this time, the twins were determined not to leave the place that made them so happy.They settled into life at Gravity Falls without any of the issues that plagued them at their old school with their parents and misunderstanding peers. They were finally free to explore Gravity Falls and spend time with their friends to their hearts' content.Thought there was going to be a terrible plot twist? Nope. I generally just want the twins to be happy and thriving so there's going to be very little plot to this outside of some romantic plotlines...because I'm a sucker for those :')//This is my first Gravity Falls fic and I've only watched the whole thing twice so go easy on me if I make a mistake or just generally do a poor job of this :) I haven't read any of the books or comics because I can't get my hands on them - the pandemic and whatnot.//TW: non-detailed mention of parental neglect stretching from childhood into adolescence, allusions to PTSD/unresolved childhood trauma, mentions of adolescent bullying and related struggles
Relationships: Pacifica Northwest/Dipper Pines
Comments: 29
Kudos: 67





	1. Prologue [1]

**Author's Note:**

> I REFUSE to believe that two socially strange twelve-year-olds would discover magic, save the world from an apocalypse, make the best friends they've ever had, and then return to their normal home in California without any trauma or difficulty. Also, I hate when kids have to leave their version of fairyland because I would be clinging to that shit with my FINGERNAILS. So here's my totally self-indulgent fic where Dipper and Mabel return and are generally just happy.
> 
> (also where the hell were their parents all summer?? they never called or wrote a letter and I would ASSUME they at least SUSPECTED Grunkle Stan's criminal past and yet they shipped off their twelve-year-olds to go live with him? nuh-uh. no thanks.)

He and Mabel had been twelve when they first stepped off that bus and entered Gravity Falls. At the time, he had felt so grown-up - old enough to explore on his own, talk safely with strangers, judge the world around him and see it as it was.

In truth, he and Mabel hadn’t been old enough. Not for any of it. They had been kids.

Gravity Falls had been the turning point for the twins. Their lives hadn’t been perfect before. Their parents had wanted to be anything but. They had spent their childhood playing quietly in their rooms, not too loudly or their mother would complain of headaches and their father would snap at them to shut up. They quickly learned that outside was the best place to play. Mabel could be loud and obtrusive without anyone yelling at her. Dipper could say strange things without getting odd looks or comments.

The same sorts of things drove them away from their classmates. And as the twins and their parents became further and further estranged, their mom and dad had decided to ship them off like unwanted luggage.

Hence, their first trip to Gravity Falls.

When they reached the quaint Oregon town, Dipper could hardly believe his luck. It seemed like a dream come true. Grunkle Stan was just like Mabel in that he was loud and brash and bold. He was just like Dipper in that he said strange things at strange times, and nobody quite understood him.

He was more of a father to the twins than their own parents had ever been.

Dipper still remembered the bitter taste in his mouth as he watched Mabel writing letters to their parents using colorful markers and lots of glitter. He knew that their parents wouldn’t smile at her whimsical misspellings and rainbow letters. They would only become furious when glitter spilled on their pristine carpets.

He didn’t write one letter to them during the summer. They wrote one to him at the beginning, a bare-bones hope-you’re-doing-well message, and one at the end, an excited-to-see-you-soon card. Both could have been to a sick coworker or a distant relative. Neither had enough personalization that suggested they were being delivered to the sender’s child. Their only son.

Dipper knew his parents didn’t want them. So he harbored a secret hope that they would be allowed to stay with Grunkle Stan. They could go to high school with Wendy and her friends. Pacifica was actually turning out to be really sweet - maybe Dipper could become better friends with her. For the first time ever, he could live in a place full of magic and mystery and wonder, and everyone around him would be just as “weird” as he was.

But his parents had sent him that brief come-home calling and his fantasy had come crashing down around him.

Yes, Gravity Falls had been the turning point for so much. Most of it was good. Some of it was bad.

Mabel had night terrors afterwards, something she had never experienced before and that never failed to irritate their parents. Dipper couldn’t help but check all his classmates’ eyes for signs of Bill.

And high school was hell.

They struggled through freshman year. Dipper got a front-row seat as his bubbly, outgoing sister wilted. She was one of the most unpopular people in school because of her genuineness. A few people became friends with her but nobody nearly as kind as her friends in Gravity Falls, and none of them understood her nearly so well. She couldn’t talk about the gnomes who had wanted to take her as their queen or her journey through her grunkle’s mind or how she had saved the entire world from weirdness - and when she did, people thought she was lying, or crazy, or both. At least she had Waddles, although as the months went on, the pig brought her less and less comfort.

Dipper knew to shut up about their experiences in Gravity Falls, but this didn’t exactly save him, either. He still faced his fair share of bullying, his fair share of being cast to the sidelines. He became known as the nerdy kid who always had his nose stuck in a book or was poking around the science labs that were only supposed to be used by the older students. Some of the science teachers were kind to him, but he guessed that they were taking pity on him. It didn’t feel like it had when he was learning about the weirdness in Gravity Falls, charting out conspiracies and putting the puzzle pieces together. Mystery and experimentation in California was cold, impersonal.

The woods that Mabel and Dipper grew up playing in felt different. Ruined. He kept expecting some strange creature to hop out from behind a tree, or to accidentally fall into a giant trap, or some sort of strangeness to claim them once again.

After a while, he stopped waiting for something like that to happen.

He shut up. He kept his head down. And he and Mabel suffered.

Their parents weren’t cruel. Neglectful, maybe, but not cruel. So when they begged to return to Gravity Falls, they let them.

It was the best thing Dipper had heard them say all year.

*

Just like Mabel had wilted, Dipper got to watch her bloom again the closer they grew to Gravity Falls.

She pulled her head up from the phone their parents had caved and bought her. She began looking out the window. Her legs began bouncing in place. When Mabel got up on her knees and pressed her face to the cool glass of the bus window, Dipper knew he was getting his sister back.

He pressed his palms into his eyes to keep the tears from flowing, and hugged a complacent Waddles for support.

When Gravity Falls came into view in the canyon below them, Mabel let out a whoop that caused other passengers to stare and a few to chuckle condescendingly.

Dipper didn’t care. He matched his sister’s triumphant howl in the boldest move he had made all year and bounced in his seat.

The bus pulled to a stop in front of the Mystery Shack and the twins poured out, clutching their luggage, grins splitting their faces.

Everyone was there to greet them.

Their grunkles came first, of course, tugging them into tight, rough hugs. “You’ve grown!” Grunkle Stan said to the two of them, almost accusingly. He had lost weight and was wearing what looked like almost a clean shirt. Dipper hadn’t seen him looking so healthy in…well, ever.

Grunkle Ford was next. He clasped each of the twins’ hands in his wrinkled ones. “I am so eager to work with the both of you again,” he told them in that oddly formal way of his, the skin around his eyes wrinkling with his grin.

Excitement swelled in Dipper’s chest. He could hardly wait to start uncovering more and more of Gravity Fall’s secrets.

When his grunkles moved aside, he and Mabel were knocked to the ground by the human equivalent of a very excited golden retriever.

“Soos!” Mabel screamed, the sound piercing Dipper’s eardrums.

“Dudes!” Soos exclaimed. When they clambered back to their feet, Dipper saw that Soos’ eyes were filled with tears. He adjusted the fez on his head, sniffing.

The big man’s grandmother tottered past him, staring somewhere in between the twins. “You return. I make dinner,” she decided peacefully, then turned around and started the laborious process of returning to the Mystery Shack.

Mabel scanned the crowd that was their welcome-back party and shrieked when her gaze landed on Candy and Grenda, her best friends from the previous summer. “You _guys!_ ” she screamed. Dipper hadn’t seen her get so excited to see friends for the entire school year. He could practically see her emotional wounds healing in front of his very eyes.

A shadow fell over him and he turned to see who had come to greet him. His stomach nearly dropped to his toes.

 _Wendy_.

“Hey, kid,” she greeted him, ruffling his hair. She was wearing the cap she had plucked from his head. It was even more worn than when he last had it and he couldn’t wait to ask her what sorts of adventures it had been through. Knowing Wendy, they had been totally dangerous and completely awesome.

“Wendy,” he replied nervously, his voice cracking on the second syllable. His body was still going through those changes that Grunkle Stan and Mabel had liked to mercilessly tease him about, and he felt his cheeks flush red.

“I’ve missed you so much!” Wendy scooped him effortlessly off the ground and swung him around in a bear hug. “This town is so _boring_ without you kids messing everything up!”

“R - really?” Dipper adjusted his own hat - the one that Wendy had traded for the cap - as she set him back on the ground.

“Really.” She shot him a wide, genuine smile. “And I wasn’t the only one who thought so.” She gestured to the huge crowd of people. It looked like almost all of Gravity Falls had turned up to say hello.

Dipper had a million questions to ask her. What had happened since they left? Had anything else threatened the town? How had the Mystery Shack held up? Was high school here as bad as high school in California? But he was quickly bombarded by Wendy’s entire friend group, eager to greet him.

Once that cluster of teenage mania had cleared, Pacifica stepped forward, casting her gaze down shyly. She didn’t hold herself the way she had last summer. She seemed humbled just from the way she wouldn’t quite meet Dipper’s gaze.

Dipper saved her the trouble of having to say anything and wrapped her in a gentle hug, which she quickly and gladly returned.

When he pulled away, Grunkle Stan shot him a thumbs-up over Pacifica’s shoulder. Dipper glared at him, but there wasn’t any real malice behind it. He couldn’t find an angry bone in his body, not now. Not when they had just returned to Gravity Falls.

The welcome party stretched long into the evening, with everyone from last summer stopping by to say their hellos. Seeing them all again was like Dipper was eating or drinking for the first time in a year. He hadn’t realized just how starved he had been for Gravity Falls until this very moment.

But eventually, the grunkles declared that _they’re growing children and they need sleep, dammit_ and ushered the children inside while everyone called out their goodbyes.

“We haven’t really touched the attic since you kids left,” Grunkle Stan admitted as he followed them up the stairs, Grunkle Ford close behind him. “Didn’t want to jinx things.”

“Your grunkle’s turned into quite the superstitious person since you kids left,” Grunkle Ford called over his brother’s shoulder.

“Well, why wouldn’t I?” Grunkle Stan demanded. His voice drifted off as he muttered, “Gnomes in the woods and bodysnatchers stealing my memories…”

“We got rid of Bill,” Dipper reminded his grunkle absently as he scanned the attic. It was so similar and yet so different. All of the things that had made the room his and Mabel’s were gone, of course - their posters, the rumpled beds, the strewn belongings of their suitcases. But some things were still there. There were lighter spots on the walls where their posters had protected the wood from the sun. The beds were made with the same sheets they had slept under the previous summer. And Mabel was already tossing her clothes to and fro, searching for her favorite sparkly PJs while Waddles chewed absently on a pair of her pants.

Everything was going to be okay.

That night, falling asleep under the Gravity Falls sky, Dipper felt more at peace than he had all year.


	2. Prologue 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little rushed because I really wanted to publish it TONIGHT for some reason. Thanks for the positive feedback so far! This is the last bit of prologue before the actual story :)

The next morning, Dipper and Mabel woke to the smell of smoke and a string of curses.

“My innocent ears!” Mabel howled, clapping her hands over said ears, the innocence of which remained to be seen.

“Is something on fire?” Dipper asked in shock, his priorities - in his opinion - a little straighter than Mabel’s. He leapt out of bed and raced down the attic stairs onto the main floor.

Black smoke billowed from the kitchen. Dipper dropped low and ducked inside, pulling his pyjama shirt over his mouth.

Grunkle Stan had pulled open a window and was frantically waving the smoke outside while Grunkle Ford bent over with his hands on his knees, howling with laughter.

“What happened?” Dipper demanded.

“Your Grunkle Stan,” Grunkle Ford explained between gasps of laughter, “burned the ever-living hell out of some pancakes.”

“That’s a bad word,” Mabel growled behind Dipper.

“Sorry, sweetie. Heck.”

“ _ Thank _ you.”

Dipper sighed, leaning against a doorframe and trying to calm his frantic heart. It was just pancakes. That was all.

The smell of burning, for a terrible second, had thrust him back into the world of Weirdmageddon. Something had always been on fire there. But it was over. Bill was gone. He couldn’t hurt any of them anymore.

Why couldn’t Dipper’s stupid brain accept that?

“Let’s go grab something to eat at Greasy’s,” Grunkle Ford suggested, ushering the children out of the house as Grunkle Stan continued waving frantically at the billowing smoke. “He’ll catch up.”

*

Squished against the windows by an increasingly hyper Mabel, eating pancakes off a plate that was stuck to the table with the residue of the last customer’s meal, Dipper felt the sort of warm happiness he had feared he would never feel again.

Grunkle Stan stank of smoke and drew more than a few odd looks when he stalked in the doors of Greasy’s Diner. “Stan! What the heck happened to ya?” Lazy Susan asked as she topped off one man’s coffee, accidentally spilling some onto the newspaper he had foolishly set down for a moment.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Grunkle Stan barked as he slid into the booth next to his brother and across from Mabel.

“Is the Mystery Shack on fire?” Grunkle Ford asked as if they were discussing the weather.

“Not really,” Grunkle Stan muttered. “Soos’ll deal with it.”

Dipper grinned at their banter. They reminded him so strongly of Mabel and himself - grizzled and warped through what they had lived through, sure, but at their core, they were teasing twins just like Dipper and his sister.

“Oh, Dipper,” Grunkle Ford said suddenly, dragging him from his thoughts. “I have something for you.”

Dipper’s eyebrows raised. Grunkle Ford’s presents were always the best. For Christmas, he had sent him a bubble gun that produced bubbles of various sizes and colors based on a few simple dials lining its sides. Dipper’s mother had screamed when he first peeled back the wrapping paper, and then sank into annoyance when she realized it wasn’t a real gun.

Grunkle Ford reached into his coat - despite the warm weather outside - and produced a small, red, leather-bound journal. “I thought since you solved all my mysteries, you could start finding some of your own,” he explained, passing the journal over to Dipper, careful not to let it touch any of the diner’s surfaces.

Dipper clutched the book reverently, staring down at its plain cover. It was an exact replica of his uncle’s three journals, apart from the missing handprint and number.

“I have some extra black paper and markers at home,” his grunkle said, as if reading his thoughts. “We can put on the finishing touches after breakfast.”

Tears sprang to Dipper’s eyes. Grunkle Ford has always understood him better than anyone - aside, of course, from Mabel. They connected on such a deep level…and this journal confirmed it. It made him feel like he was truly following in his grunkle’s footsteps, on his way to an illustrious cryptozoology career.

Not to mention, it gave him a very clear focus for the summer - to fill up this journal.

He lunged across the table, dipping the edge of his shirt in syrup and not caring in the slightest as he wrapped Grunkle Ford in a tight, slightly awkwardly angled hug. “Thank you, thank you,  _ thank you! _ ”

“Don’t mention it,” his grunkle replied warmly, patting him gently on the back.

“Let me see!” Mabel demanded.

Dipper hesitated, reluctant to part with his gift so soon. Luckily, Grunkle Ford swooped to his rescue. “I think Stan has something for you, Mabel.”

Mabel shrieked like a child, bouncing up and down and clapping her hands. “You guys are the best!”

“I know,” Grunkle Stan replied, reaching into his own pocket and pulling out a ruby-studded collar. Dipper would have bet his journal that the rubies were as fake as they could get, but they shimmered red in the sunlight streaming through the grimy window, and Mabel’s shriek confirmed his suspicions that she didn’t care whether or not they were real.

“Is that for Waddles?” she asked, reverently taking the collar from Grunkle Stan.

“Wait, I haven’t given you the best part,” Grunkle Stan told her, reaching into yet another pocket. He produced a necklace on a thin silver chain, a ruby matching the ones on the collar resting in its center.

Mabel was speechless, which was an incredibly hard state to achieve with her. She snatched the necklace from her uncle’s hand and fastened it quickly around her own neck. It settled into place against her sweater.

“Waddles! Here, boy!” She patted her thigh and the pig wriggled out from beneath the table, oinking curiously and, probably, a little hopeful that he would get a piece of her pancake.

Mabel fastened the collar carefully around his neck and hefted him into her lap. “Oh, you look so dashing, Waddles! Doesn’t he look dashing, Dipper?”

Waddles was currently licking a patch of spilled syrup, flat nose shoved against the sticky tabletop. “Super dashing,” Dipper agreed tentatively, earning a large smile from his sister in return.

She reached into her bag, pulling out the Polaroid camera their parents had gotten her for Christmas. “This is a moment for the scrapbook!” She turned around and went up on her knees so she could fit everyone into the frame, leaving Waddles on the table to scavenge for unfinished meals. “Say cheese!”

The resulting Polaroid featured a widely grinning Mabel, an extremely happy pig, Dipper guarding his final pancake, and both of their grunkles shouting foul language at the pig attempting to steal their breakfast.

It was perfect.

*

The summer flew by at breakneck speed. Dipper filled page after page of the journal with his research and findings. There were so many hidden corners to Gravity Falls that he hadn’t gotten a chance to explore last summer, not to mention creatures he had failed to write down all those months ago. He wasn’t as good at the illustrations as his uncle was, so nothing came out quite right, but the book was _ his _ , and he was  _ researching _ , and so he was more than okay with his lopsided trolls and disproportionate gnomes.

He spent time with the people he had missed so desperately - Wendy and her gang, Mabel’s friends (who had talked him into exactly  _ one _ makeover - he had to remember to burn those pictures when Mabel was sleeping), and Pacifica, in a surprising turn of events. She had gotten so much more tolerable since her family’s fall from grace. She was humble, kind…and shockingly eager to tromp around in the woods searching for trouble.

She had conformed to her parents’ airtight standards for far too long. Dipper got the feeling she saw him as the perfect way to get payback.

But in the blink of an eye, the summer was drawing to a close and he and Mabel were on the cusp of their fourteenth birthday. No big villain had revealed himself this time around - no terrible creature threatened the safety of them and their loved ones. Even so, Dipper felt a sense of looming doom and despair as Mabel marked off the days on their calendar, one by one.

One night, he just couldn’t sleep. It was about a week before their birthday, which was shaping up to be quite the party. After the twin’s heroism last summer and their general good standing with the townsfolk, everyone was eager to help throw them the best birthday party ever.

He left his room and trotted outside to the front porch, curling up next to the front door and staring into the darkened woods. Dipper almost hoped some monster would emerge - something, anything to take his mind off the fact that he and his sister would be returning to California before they knew it.

The door creaked open beside him and Grunkle Stan came out, easing himself down beside Dipper.

“Grunkle Stan? What are you doing up?” Dipper asked, surprised.

Grunkle Stan smiled gently at him. “I heard you moving around. I’m a very light sleeper. It’s a good quality to have in prison.”

Dipper sighed, letting his head thunk back against the Mystery Shack. “I don’t want to leave,” he whispered, embarassed by how much his voice trembled.

“Why not? I’m sure California’s way more exciting than this dump.” His grunkle gestured at the emptiness before them, backed by thick woods.

“No way,” Dipper replied vehemently. “There’s nothing exciting to do there. We just get in the way of Mom and Dad, and they  _ hate _ Waddles. They and Mabel argue about him all the time. And school’s terrible. The kids there are so  _ mean… _ ” He swiped at his tears. He wasn’t going to tell his uncle how Mabel cried herself to sleep most nights or how Dipper had considered running away to Gravity Falls more than once. That was just too pathetic.

His grunkle was silent for a moment. “Why didn’t you tell me about all that sooner, kid?”

“I didn’t want to seem weak,” Dipper muttered.

“Nothing wrong with being a little weak. We all are, at one point or another,” his grunkle replied contemplatively. He turned to face Dipper fully. “Is California really that terrible?”

“It’s awful,” Dipper replied bluntly, hugging his knees to his chest. “Every time I think about going back there, I feel like throwing up.”

“Jeez. I’ll take your word for it.” His grunkle was silent for another moment, quiet in that way that meant he was dreaming up some grand scheme. Since most of his schemes were dangerous and bordering on illegal, Dipper was interested to see what cogs were churning in his grunkle’s head, but he knew better than to try to ask before the plan was fully formed.

His grunkle stood slowly, sighing as his joints popped. “Man, I’m getting old.” He held a hand out to Dipper, who accepted it and let his grunkle pull him to his feet. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep? We’ll talk more in the morning.”

The words were loaded with some hidden meaning that Dipper couldn’t quite decipher. He had wanted someone to talk to about his issues, sure, but he had never expected a confidante in Grunkle Stan. Not that he wasn’t grateful.

He returned to the attic bedroom just as Grunkle Stan suggested, although his mind chewed at the California problem for a couple more hours before he finally drifted off into a troubled slumber.

*

Mabel’s jaw was on the floor. Not literally - anatomically, that would be very concerning - but she looked like one of those snakes that unhinge their jaws to devour their prey.

“You’re not joking.” Dipper didn’t phrase it like a question because it wasn’t. It was a simple statement in the face of the facts that his Grunkle Stan had just laid before him.

Phrases floated in his head, beautiful, magical words that lit him up from the inside out.  _ Talked to your parents…offered to keep you kids…agreed… _

“They’re - they’re fine with us staying?” Mabel asked, her voice a whirlwind of emotions. Dipper knew what she was going through. After all, if their parents had that quickly agreed to let them stay in Gravity Falls, then that confirmed what the twins had suspected for a long time: they didn’t care, not really. But what were they going to do? Return to California and try to repair a relationship that was shattered beyond mending, or stay here and be happy?

“If you kids want to stay, you can,” Grunkle Stan repeated firmly. “I’m always happy to offer you guys a home. Besides, it’s too quiet when you guys aren’t here. With Soos running the Mystery Shack, I don’t have anything to do but deal with that fool.” He jerked his thumb at Grunkle Ford, who looked too excited to care about the insult.

“Yes.” Dipper was on his feet before he registered the fact that he was standing. “Yes, yes, we’ll stay!”

“Yes!” Mabel shrieked, leaping out of her seat and grabbing her brother. They jumped around in a frantic, ecstatic circle before she pulled away, gasping. “Oh! That means I can go to school with my friends! And we’ll get to have so many sleepovers! And Waddles can sleep on my bed!” She was silent for a moment and then suddenly broke into huge, sobbing tears.

Dipper grabbed her and hugged her close. “Happy tears,” he explained to his shocked grunkles.

He thought he caught Ford wiping a tear from his own eye, too.

Whatever happened - whatever complications lay in store for them in moving to Gravity Falls - Dipper knew that high school would be so much better with his friends and the weirdness of Gravity falls surrounding him.

He would get to fill his journal and start a new one. Mabel would get to hang out with people who loved her just the way she was. Even Waddles would get a loving, kind, understanding home.

Dipper crossed the room and hugged his Grunkle Stan tightly. He thought of his little twelve-year-old self, turning up slightly scared and more than skeptical at the doorstep of the Mystery Shack.

Oh, if only that kid could see him now.


End file.
